


The Perfect Jumping-off Point

by sugarcoatednonsense (orphan_account)



Category: Free!
Genre: Cake, First Kiss, First Time, Haru gets jealous, Haru is an artiste and an expert in romance, Haru-chan and Mako-chan are kissed against their will, Haru-chan's room is destroyed despite his good intentions, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Nagisa gets plastered, Nagisa realizes Rei is all things wonderful squeezed into a real tight pair of jammers, Nagisa tries art therapy, Nagisa's life is struggle, Rei-chan is freaking adorable like how anyone can not be in love with this man is beyond me, ReiGisa goes stargazing, Reigisa is life, They are just beyond cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-18 21:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2362700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/sugarcoatednonsense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nagisa has to face his unfolding feelings for Rei. And his ability to eat cake suffers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My Favourite Things

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from Jason Mraz's Butterfly which always makes me think of Reigisa.

Nagisa opens the fridge. He’s pretty sure he still has some left. He rummages past the scant supplies of vegetables and meats until he finds it shoved right to the back. The last slice of sponge cake, iced liberally with buttercream and studded all over with strawberries. It’s probably still good, he assures himself, although the sponge feels a little stale. Maybe he should have actually wrapped the cling film around it instead of just laying it on top like a jaunty, transparent hat. 

He pulls out a chair at the dining room table and sits down, facing the cake squarely, accepting its challenge. You can do this, baby, he tells himself. This is what we’re good at.

Grasping the fork (his chosen weapon) firmly, he separates a small piece of cake, mostly cream and strawberries. In for the kill.

The taste is all it should be, even if aged past its prime. The buttercream is still smooth and sweet, the strawberries still moist, the sponge still reasonably soft. 

But it all falls heavy in his stomach. 

Damn it, not again. 

It had been the same story for the past two days. Nagisa knew he was hungry, knew he should eat, but no matter what he tried he couldn’t bring himself to eat more than a few mouthfuls of anything. His stomach had become an iron fortress, with a moat. And alligators. No piece of nourishment so far had stood a chance. Because without fail, as soon as he woke up, as soon as he got on the train to school, as soon as he got to swimming practice, as soon as he put food in his mouth, a thought would arise that twisted his abdomen in knots. A tall, bespectacled, blue-haired thought.

Nagisa shoves the invasive beautiful thought from his mind for about the nine thousandth time and stabs at the cake again. He chews vigorously, determined to get it down. It takes him about thirty seconds, and it feels like cardboard in his mouth, but he does it. Nagisa allows himself a small victory dance in his chair. Nice one, gorgeous. 

Then the thought reappears, followed by the inevitable clench of his stomach.

Oh for fuck’s sake. He’s taking the joy out of cake. Cake, goddamnit. What the hell, Rei-chan?! 

Nagisa reluctantly retracts that last. It’s not really Rei-chan’s fault.

Two attempts at bites later, Nagisa finally gives up and tosses the rest of the cake in the garbage just as his mother walks in. 

“Did you just - Are you feeling okay, honey?” She runs over and puts a hand under Nagisa’s bangs, despite his trying to swat her away. “I haven’t seen you go off your food since you started middle school and got that stomach flu and had terrible diarrhea for about a -”

“Mom! I’m fine!” Nagisa gets up and as far away from her wandering hands as he can. “I think I’m just going to go to bed.”

“Oh, okay sweetie. Because I think I wrote down the name of that medicine that helped you get back on rhythm somewhere.”

“Leave it alone, Mom, seriously.” Nagisa retreats into his room, taking care to lock the door behind him. 

Normally, there was no way in hell he’d go to bed this early. What is it, ten-thirty? But two days with very little food and a definite overdose of...thinking has left Nagisa exhausted. Fortunately he likes sleep, almost as much as he likes food. Especially that dozy, messy-haired sleep early in the morning, when he peeked out from under his blankets at his alarm clock and saw he still had a couple of hours before he had to be anywhere. When he could curl back into the indent he’d made in the bed and everything was already warm and soft, and the room was filled with that early morning warm, soft light and it was just frigging delicious. 

He slips on his favourite pajamas, the fleece bottoms with the sky-blue spots and the shirt with the raincloud holding an umbrella, and crawls into bed. He settles himself under the pile of blankets and wraps his arms and legs around his pillow. He sighs slowly, closing his eyes. 

And then the thought returns, with a vengeance. Although this time it’s more like a slideshow. Rei-chan practicing his dive, Rei-chan pushing up his glasses, Rei-chan smiling at him. And then there was the Incident. 

No, Nagisa thinks, burying his face in the pillow. I am not thinking about that.

And the next five minutes pass in Nagisa thinking about nothing but that.

His stomach is now wound like a new watch. Sleep is about as close as Mars. 

Well, shit. 

Nagisa lays on his back, drumming his fingers against the sheets. Now what do I do?

His mind instantly supplied something he could do, a conveniently distracting thing that had always proved popular in the past and might just wear him out enough to go to sleep. He grabs his laptop and moves it onto the bed beside him, propping himself on one elbow. Lazily his fingers move over the keys in the familiar order, opening pages littered with naked men, ramming the living shit out of each other. Nagisa keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the screen, contemplating which link to click on, certainly not thinking about what a particular person looks like naked. Which he may have seen a little in the locker room. Without that person’s express knowledge. 

He finds a decent looking threesome and clicks, laying back on the bed and squirming until he’s found a comfortable position. The first ten minutes or so is just kissing, and some of it is a tad too tender for Nagisa’s taste right now, so he skips ahead to the fucking. It’s okay, not the best porn he’s ever seen. If he’s honest, not much porn wows Nagisa anymore, or even gets him that hot. There’s only so many times you can watch a guy pound another guy in the ass before it starts to lose it’s thrill, no matter how many angles or exotic locales it takes place in. 

But it’s a routine Nagisa knows well, so he slides his hand into his pajama bottoms anyway, rocking his hips against his flattened palm. He strokes at his nipple with his other hand, slowly, teasingly. He glances occasionally at the screen, just to see what they’re up to. It’s three brunettes in a waterfall, wearing what are probably supposed to be some sort of loincloths, but actually look more like diapers. There’s the traditional assortment of moaning, licking, sucking, thrusting. 

Nagisa considers typing “glasses” into the search bar before he can stop himself. No! We are not doing this, Nagisa!

This shocks him. He’s not usually so formal with himself, especially when he’s jacking off. Nary a chan in sight. 

But it’s true. He can’t afford to think about...him right now. There’s a threatening twinge in his tummy. I will relax, goddamn it all!

He turns his attention back to himself, letting the smut fill his ears as he runs his hands up and down his length. His teeth play at his lower lip and his blonde hair falls over his hooded eyes. Another glance at the screen where one of the diapered trio is letting out animalistic grunts as another sucks him off.

I’m sure if I looked hard enough I could find an actor with blue hair.

What. The. HELL. 

Nagisa slams the laptop shut. Fine, I’ll go without. He wrenches out his headphones and scans through some of his favourite fantasies. Anything will do, he just wants to get off as fast as possible. He could think about one of his favourite singers, drama actors, one or two of his teachers. 

Nagisa grabs hold of himself, hoping to speed up the process. And then there he is above him. Rei-chan. Fresh out of the pool and still in his jammers, dripping with water and panting. He looks so good. 

Nagisa could keep going. It’s not like he hasn’t accidentally found himself getting off to   
Haru-chan and Mako-chan once or twice, because they popped into his mind at an inappropriate moment. But this isn’t a stupid fantasy. This is Rei-chan. Smart, independent, beautiful Rei-chan who is ultimately, undoubtedly going to break his heart.

And Nagisa just...can’t.

He lets his hand flop to his side in exasperation. “So I can’t do anything I like?!” he yells at the ceiling. 

He gets about two hours of sleep, none of it in the early morning, none of it delicious.


	2. Nagisa and Makoto's Parisian Honeymoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a much more subdued Nagisa who stumbled around the living room, fought his way into his pajamas, fell asleep looking at the back of Rei’s beautiful head in the sleeping bag next to his. How did he never notice how beautiful he was until now?
> 
> One last sober thought hit him before he passed out. Oh boy, am I in trouble.

“Nagisa, are you okay?” Makoto’s gaze is worried, but his downturned eyes make it a lazy kind of worried. A maybe-I-should-do-something-but-I’d-rather-sit-in-the-basement-and-eat-Cheetos worried. “You look a little...tired.”

Damn it, Mako-chan. Why are you always here? “I’m fine. I just wanted to see Haru-chan.”

“Sure, he’s in the kitchen.”

The last thing Nagisa needs is Makoto’s well-meant attentions right now. He just needs to vent, to unleash all this weird confusing shit on something. A soundboard. 

The soundboard is stood in front of the stove with a spatula. “Haru, Nagisa’s here.”

In response, Haru turns and slaps a piece of mackerel onto Makoto’s plate. “Hi.”

“Haru-chan, can I talk to you please?”

“I guess.”

Nagisa casts Makoto a sideways glance. He’s still watching him, clearly concerned. If Nagisa asks him to leave it’ll break his squidgy, over-sized heart. Makoto needs to satisfy his desperate compulsion to help others daily or he may implode.

Nagisa flops down at the table. He turns to look at Haru’s back, which had returned to the stove, and shields his eyes from Makoto’s paternal worry.

“What’s going on, Nagisa?”

“It’s ummm… well.” Mako-chan, would you quit fucking staring?! Nagisa rocks in the chair, as he tries to think how to begin, further and further until it tips him out onto the floor. He tumbles over, a pile of limbs until his head makes violent contact with the wall.

“Nagisa!” Makoto’s on the floor instantly, and even Haru puts down his spatula and kneels beside him. 

Nagisa’s pretty sure he feels his brain rattle around in his skull, pain splintering him in two. Tears are forming in the corners of his eyes. God, he’s so tired. He just wants to go two minutes without thinking about Rei-chan.

“Are you alright? I’ll go get a cloth.” Makoto bounds from the room.

“No, I’m not alright!” Nagisa covers his eyes with his hands. “Haru-chan, I - I think I have a crush on Rei-chan.” His heart’s thumping in his ears. 

“That’s it?”

Maybe Nagisa should have found an actual soundboard. 

Haru stands up and goes back to flip his mackerel. “Aren’t you guys already dating?”

What? “No, why would you think that?”

“You’re always all over each other and talking about each other. I just kind of assumed you were an item.”

Makoto comes back in with a wet facecloth and presses it gently to the back of Nagisa’s head. “Who’s an item?” 

“Nagisa and Rei.”

“No we’re not!” Nagisa feels like pushing Haru’s head into his wok when the room stops spinning. He’s definitely going to have a lump there. “Rei doesn’t like guys, he barely likes people. There’s no way he’d wanna date me.”

Makoto tousles Nagisa’s hair. “Don’t say that, Nagisa. All the boys want to date you. You’re a great catch. Someone will realize that one day and he’ll be a very lucky guy.”

“Thanks for the life lesson, Boy Meets World. Just leave me alone to rot in my tragic unrequited love.”

Haru puts his mackerel on a plate and sits at the table. 

“What brought this on? You’ve been off for a couple of days now.” Makoto’s eyes are baring into Nagisa’s soul.

“It’s been...since the night after prefecturals. And the sleepover.”

 

It was initially Makoto’s suggestion to have a sleepover after prefecturals, although more out of a sense of practicality than anything else. 

“It’ll already be late when the bus gets back to the school. There’s no point in you and Rei having to take the train home when Haru’s place is just up the hill. You could just drop off your sleeping bags before we leave, right Haru?”

Haru’s deadpan expression made it impossible to tell whether Makoto had cleared this idea with him first.

“YAYAY!!!” Nagisa did a lap of the other three, waving his arms in the air. “This is going to be so much fun!”

Haru eventually shrugged his assent, and Rei saw the logic in the plan so he made no attempt to counter it. So they were all prepared to stay over at Haru’s that night.

Getting shitfaced on the other hand, was all Nagisa’s idea.

He decided not to mention it until they were back at Haru’s, predicting their reactions: Makoto’s flustered speech about being underage, Rei’s monologue about the harmful effects of alcohol, Haru’s deadpan expression.

Instead he waited until they were all in their pajamas before unrolling his sleeping bag to reveal the bottle of vodka concealed within it. And then consuming most of it himself. 

Two hours later Nagisa was chasing Haru around the house, crying “Kisumi! Kiss me! Kisumi! Kiss me!” and giggling hysterically. Before Makoto could intervene he had pinned Haru to the ground and planted a wet kiss on his cheek. 

As Makoto lifted him off, Nagisa wrapped his arms around his neck and hung there, while Haru stood and went to clean off the human contact. 

“Your turn, Mako-chan!” Nagisa twisted upwards and lunged head-first, in what was more of a headbutt than a kiss. (Thinking back on it, Nagisa isn’t even sure if their lips touched. All he really remembers is the cold terror in Makoto’s eyes.)

Makoto squirmed away, his cheeks flushing, as Nagisa flailed around to find a wall to support himself on. 

Rei stood awkwardly in the corner, just a little tipsy from the shot Nagisa had forced down him. Nagisa staggered over and threw an arm around his neck. “Hey, hey Rei-chan, kiss me. Get it? Like Kisumi? Mako-chan and Haru-chan’s friend from way back then?”

“I think you mean way back when, which is already a very colloquial phrase and probably shouldn’t be further corrup-”

Nagisa threaded his hands into Rei’s hair and pulled him in, feeling him resist only slightly. There’s a second of soft, sweet, warm, and then Rei is blinking, pushing up his glasses and looking anywhere but at Nagisa. 

Huh. That was...huh.

The rest of the night dissolved into the single-minded urge to kiss him again. It was a much more subdued Nagisa who stumbled around the living room, fought his way into his pajamas, fell asleep looking at the back of Rei’s beautiful head in the sleeping bag next to his. How did he never notice how beautiful he was until now?

One last sober thought hit him before he passed out. Oh boy, am I in trouble. 

 

“I just...ever since I kissed him, I can’t stop thinking about him. Ugghhh, this sucks.” Nagisa buries his head in his arms. 

Haru continues eating mackerel, not giving a single fuck. “And all of a sudden you have feelings for him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve liked him for a while. I never really thought about him that way before. He was always just Rei-chan, you know?”

“All this brought on by a kiss,” Haru tells his plate of mackerel. 

Makoto looks over at him, one arm around Nagisa. “Sometimes a kiss can change things Haru. As I recall, Rei wasn’t the only one Nagisa kissed that night.” He’s running his other hand through his hair, his cheeks a little rosy.

“Yeah, but that was just a stupid kiss between friends. I was just goofing around. It’s not like it was your fir- Wait, was that your first - AWWWW, MAKO-CHAN!”

Nagisa propels himself into Makoto, tipping him off balance. 

“It’s okay, Nagisa, don’t worry about it,” says Makoto uncomfortably as he tries to prize him off. 

“No, Mako-chan! You’re not to worry! It’s my responsibility! Let me take you away from all of this; we’ll honeymoon in Paris!” Nagisa finishes dramatically, sweeping a hand toward the horizon.

“We get the point, Nagisa.” Haru casts a marginally unpleasant look at Nagisa, who sees his window of opportunity and grins.

“Jealous, Haru-chan?” Nagisa runs his forefinger under Makoto’s chin and bats his eyelashes at Haru. “Look out or I’ll have his second kiss as well.”

Makoto seizes Nagisa firmly under the arms and lifts him away, as if he’s an overaffectionate cat. “Come on, Nagisa, that’s enough. We haven’t finished talking about you and Rei.”

There was that goddamn clench in his stomach again. Just the mention of his fucking name.

“I have an idea that might be helpful to you.” A sentence that, somewhat miraculously, came from Haru. “Come with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got the 50% Off reference, I love you.


	3. Haruka Nanase: The Love Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s got to face him some time. But once he sees how Rei is, sees that he’s fine and it meant nothing, then the tiniest possibility will be gone. Then he has to start getting over him. And Nagisa can’t imagine how he’s going to do that.

Nagisa pulls himself to his feet and cocks his head at Haru. “What is it?”

“Makoto, I think it’s time you went home,” says Haru, untying his apron. 

Well, so much for preserving his feelings. Makoto puts on a forced smile and pats Nagisa on the head as he grabs his jacket. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow then. Bye, Haru.”

“Bye.”

Makoto pads down the hall and disappears, probably off to find a cat to shower with his emotions. 

“Nagisa, this way.”

The voice comes from the other side of the kitchen door where Haru is already strolling away. He turns into his bedroom, not bothering to look back and see if Nagisa is following. 

“Mako-chan didn’t have to leave, I don’t mind.” Nagisa pokes his head into the room where Haru is knelt beside the bed, pulling a wide box out from under it. He’s silenced by the slightly urgent glimmer in Haru’s eyes.

“This is private.”

Nagisa mouth opens in one of his signature gleeful smiles. Haru-chan has secrets? Ones he’s prepared to tell him and not Mako-chan? Wait till Rei-chan hears about this.

Clench. Damn, he forgot for a second. He’s kind of been avoiding Rei for the past couple of days. In fact...today is Sunday. He always goes to Rei-chan’s on Sundays. He’s probably wondering where he is. What if he suspects something? Stop, stop thinking about it.

“I like to do this sometimes, when I find I’ve been thinking too much.” Haru lifts the lid and takes out several paintbrushes held together with an elastic band, assorted acrylic paints, blank papers. 

Haru-chan gets plagued by his thoughts? Like, like normal people? “Don’t you swim when that happens?”

“I don’t always have the opportunity to swim.” Haru sighs and casts a look out the window. 

“So you paint. You’re pretty good, Haru-chan.” Nagisa pulls out some of Haru’s finished works. There’s a lot of blues and greens, predictably water-based colours. Some are pretty abstract, erratic brushstrokes and tunnels of light and dark. This one reminds Nagisa of a sunset, but all in cold shades: grey, turquoise, violet. There’s another with more defined shapes - that could be an eye in emerald green, that might be a sweep of honey brown hair. 

There’s one more peeking out at the bottom of the box, not at all abstract. Two fish swimming in a circle, yin and yang, one a streamlined dolphin and the other - is that an orca?

“What’s that one?” Nagisa reaches to pull it from under a sketchbook, but Haru’s hand comes down hard over the pile. 

“No. You’ve seen enough. You get the idea.” He neatly lays out a small blank canvas, a brush and several white tubs of acrylic paint. “If you need a way to express the way you’re feeling for Rei, you can use this. Just tell no one.”

Haru gets to his feet. “I’m going to the pool.”

Nagisa looks at the neat little workstation he’s been given. “Hey, Haru-chan? Thanks.”

“Kay.” Taking a towel off a hook on the door, he leaves Nagisa to himself. 

Alright, time for self-expression. Nagisa rubs his hands together, trying to stimulate his usual enthusiasm. He cracks open the first tub of paint, splattering a little on the carpet. Blue. Deep, rich, indigo. Nagisa pushes it out of his sight and moves onto the second one. This one’s screwed on tighter so he’s forced to fetch a knife from the kitchen and pry it open. The knife bends and is abandoned on the floor. Purple. Violet, even. Nagisa runs a hand through his hair. It’s okay, this is why we’re here. 

He reaches for the third and twists it open to reveal - red. Fine then, Haru. If that’s how you want to play it, let’s do this. 

He grabs the fattest brush and scrawls purple all over the page, running over the edges onto the carpet. Then for the blue; he spikes up the bristles on a different brush and flicks it over the top half, forming messy hair. He can’t find a brush neat enough for the red so he dips his finger into the paint and runs a thin line end to end, with two squares over the purple background. 

He sits back a moment to admire his handiwork. This may be the weirdest painting he’s ever seen. It looks nothing like Rei-chan, and yet it is so obviously inspired by him. It hurts to look at it. 

A glance at the clock tells him he’s been working on it for almost an hour. Nagisa takes out another piece of paper and finds a pot of pink paint. He dips into the pot, nearly his whole hand submerged, and throws down a huge splat on the paper. He runs both hands over it, enjoying the feeling of the paint between his fingers.

He feels himself reaching for the purple again. He runs a forefinger over the page, a faultline of purple in a sea of pink. Nagisa swallows, his vision may be getting fuzzy. He runs his hands through his hair again. He’s not sure this is helping.

Then the door opens and Nagisa turns as Haru drops his towel on the floor. 

His shimmering eyes take in the broken cutlery, the paint soaking into the carpet and mixed into the wrong containers, the Nagisa with paint up to his elbows and streaked through his hair who’s struggling to form his customary smile. 

“Hey Haru-chan. How was your swim?”

“Get out.”

 

After a long, hot shower, Nagisa lies on his bed. Maybe he’ll try to sleep again. Even though tomorrow morning he’ll have to go catch the train, where Rei-chan will be waiting. He’s got to face him some time. But once he sees how Rei is, sees that he’s fine and it meant nothing, then the tiniest possibility will be gone. Then he has to start getting over him. And Nagisa can’t imagine how he’s going to do that.

His phone buzzes. Nagisa answers with his face buried in the pillow. “Hello?”

“Nagisa-kun? It’s Rei. How are you this evening?”

Nagisa pulls himself to a sitting position. “Umm, I’m okay. How are you, Rei-chan?”

“I’m fine.”

He nods slowly before he remembers Rei-chan can’t see him. 

“I just...wanted to check you were alright. I spoke with Makoto-senpai today and he said you weren’t feeling well. Plus you didn’t come by like you usually do.”

“Yeah, I was...kind of sick. Sorry,” he says, grinding his palm into his eyes.

“It’s alright. I recommend you take lots of rest and fluids, and you should feel better in the morning.”

“Okay. See you, Rei-chan.” 

“See you soon. Nagisa-kun?”

“Yeah?”

“I missed you today.”

Nagisa lets his head fall back into the wall. For the second time today. Fuck, Rei-chan, why do you have to torture me like that?

“Okay. Talk to you later.”

“Goodnight.”

Nagisa throws down his phone and collapses back onto the bed, curling into the blankets. He’s not Haru. He’s not sure he can keep quiet about this much longer.


	4. Rei-chan, can we talk?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What sort of feelings, Nagisa-kun?” Rei’s voice is shaky. He’s terrible at emotional discussions.
> 
> Nagisa sighs heavily. Say it. Say it. Just SAY IT already. “Feelings...for you. I think I like you, Rei-chan.”

In retrospect, of course Nagisa’s liked Rei for a long time. Why else would he leap up with excitement every time Rei got to swim practice? Why would he show up ten minutes early for the train, sacrificing his precious sleep, because he knows that’s when Rei gets there and he wants to see him? Why was it, every time he’d announce an idea to the swim club, he’d immediately look to see Rei’s reaction first?

He told himself they were just friends, just really good friends. And if he occasionally wondered what it would be like to kiss Rei-chan, or peeked at him while he was changing, well that was normal right? They’re teenagers, brimming with hormones and conflicts over their burgeoning sexualities. So Nagisa pushed back against those thoughts, ignored them, because it would only screw shit up if he let them be real.

But then they actually kissed, and it was like a dam burst in Nagisa’s chest. Rei-chan commandered his life in a sudden, butterfly blur and it was evident now, three days later, he had to tell him. 

For the sake of his own sanity, and so he might get some sleep tonight, he had to tell him. And then Rei-chan would reject him, gently but firmly, with all his wonderful, stupid logic and then Nagisa would cry for a bit, put on a fake smile until he could do it for real again. That was how it was going to be. Nagisa didn’t let himself consider the alternative, in which Rei blushed, got all shifty behind his glasses, and mumbled something about having similar irrational emotions. Not more than once anyway.

He feels nauseous the whole time he’s getting ready for school and for the first and probably last time he gets to the station before Rei. He bounces his heels on the floor, dreading everything, wanting it to be over, not wanting it to be over because then he’ll be replaying Rei’s rejection in his head for days, wishing he had something to eat but knowing there’s no way he could get it down if he did - 

“Good morning, Nagisa-kun.” Here he comes, looking fucking perfect as usual. He’s so damn cute with all the straps done up on his backpack, that beautiful weirdo. Nagisa tears his eyes away from Rei’s face and the mild surprise to see him there so early.

“I’m a little surprised to see you here so early,” says Rei-chan, nudging his glasses up his nose. 

“Yeah, you know, ‘cause of things, with the stuff.” Nice, Nagisa. Way to play it cool. Should he do it now? Fuck, he doesn’t want to. But he won’t get another chance till after school; can he wait till then?

Aw, fuck it all. “Rei-chan?”

Rei turns to him, concern evident in his eyes. “Yes?”

“Can...we...talk? Whenever, I mean, sometime?”

“Of course, Nagisa-kun. Is now not a good time?”

Nagisa squirms, plucking at a loose thread on his backpack. If he tells him now, it’ll be a seriously awkward train ride to school. But when will it not be awkward, he’s with Rei-chan all the time. God, he doesn’t want to tell him. He wants it over with so bad. 

“I guess.” Nagisa pulls his knees up onto the bench and clutches his backpack to his face. He glances at Rei, who’s waiting patiently for him to spit it out already. He’s such a good friend. Nagisa can’t stand the thought of losing him over this. Oh fuck, what if he loses him over this? He hadn’t thought of that. 

“I just...I’ve been having...feelings lately.” Nagisa hides his face behind the backpack. He can already see Rei-chan’s face dawning with realization. In a second it’ll be shock, or disgust, or pity. Nagisa can’t watch.

“What sort of feelings, Nagisa-kun?” Rei’s voice is shaky. He’s terrible at emotional discussions.

Nagisa sighs heavily. Say it. Say it. Just SAY IT already. “Feelings...for you. I think I like you, Rei-chan.”

The silence lasts a hundred years. Nagisa wonders if he can just stay hunched behind his backpack for the rest of his life, if anyone would bother him. Why the fuck did he do this? This was by far the stupidest thing he’d eve-

“Nagisa-kun.”

“Yeah?”

“I, um...that is to say, if all that is true, then your feelings aren’t unreciprocated.”

Nagisa lifts his head slightly, so his eyes peek over at Rei. His face is flushed and he’s touching his glasses more than usual. 

“Sorry, Rei-chan, you kinda made it sound like you like me back.” 

Rei clears his throat. “Yes, well, I believe I do. It’s a novel experience for me, but I looked up my symptoms extensively and confirmed that I do like you as more than a friend.”

Nagisa smiles. Not a let’s-get-a-strawberry-sundae smile, not even a we-came-first-at-prefecturals smile, but the kind of smile he’s had only two or three times before, when he has too much happiness inside to keep it there and it starts to radiate out of him like light through a lantern. His eyes fill with relief. 

“Cool, that’s...cool.” 

He feels Rei-chan lean in and leave a gentle kiss on his cheek. Rei immediately tries to regain his composure. “I hope that wasn’t too forward of me.”

Nagisa giggles and reaches for Rei’s hand, which is balled into a fist and sweaty, so he settles for hooking a pinky finger around Rei’s, and they sit there in silence until the train arrives, Rei’s cheeks a bright pink, Nagisa grinning and his eyes sparkling. 

The knot in his stomach finally comes undone. And as they board the train, Nagisa notices how hungry he is. He pats his tummy as it growls.

Rei-chan passes him a protein bar from his bento.


	5. More than Just a Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nagisa’s tempted to pinch himself. Just to be sure. “You want to do it here? In the park?” 
> 
> “I brought a tent.”
> 
> “You brought a- where the hell are you hiding a tent?”

Rei’s popsicle is starting to drip on Nagisa’s hand. 

“Rei-chan, hurry up and eat this before I eat it for you,” he says, waving it in Rei’s direction. 

“I’m almost done, Nagisa-kun. Or would you rather have weeds and bugs bothering you all evening?” Rei smoothes over the plastic liner, erasing any last wrinkle before he reaches for the picnic blanket to place over it. Nagisa chews on the stick from his own popsicle in response. 

“There!” Rei stands back, hands on hips, to admire his handiwork. The blanket is soft and lavender with golden tassels. His wicker basket anchors the blanket against the wind, filled with fruit, sandwiches, a thermos of hot chocolate and a couple of extra blankets, neatly folded. Nagisa watches Rei take off his shoes, crawl onto the blanket and cross his legs. He watches Rei check his watch, nudge his glasses, turn around and smile at him.

He watches Rei a lot these days.

The popsicle is held aloft, dribbling over Nagisa’s wrist as he wriggles down beside Rei. “Careful!” Rei leaps forward to preserve his carefully-selected blanket, clutches at the popsicle frantically. Nagisa reclaims it where it breaks between his fingers, but not before leaving a trail of sticky residue down Rei’s black polo shirt. 

“Whoops. Sorry, Rei-chan.” Nagisa reaches an already sticky hand out to rub the stain in deeper.

“No, no, that’s alright,” says Rei, as he dives into his basket and pulls out a pack of wet wipes. He hands two to Nagisa and wraps the broken popsicle in another, darting over to drop it in the garbage can next to the blanket. Close enough to be convenient, but not so close as to find the smell offensive, to use Rei-chan’s words. He probably also considered the direction and strength of the wind, as well as the tree coverage and slope of the ground before he picked this spot. Nagisa can’t understand why people get annoyed when Rei does stuff like that; he thinks it the most adorable thing ever. Listening to him rant about why getting the bread toasted at Subway ruins the integrity of the sandwich was probably one of the deciding moments in Nagisa falling in love with him. 

Rei’s pulling his shirt off, a spare one folded in his lap. Nagisa loves that he’s allowed to look at him openly now. Good God, he’s hot. His hair is all fluffed up with static after he pulls the other shirt over his head. He sees Nagisa watching and his cheeks go a little pink. 

“Come here, Rei-chan,” he says, holding out his arms for him. Rei lies down beside him and puts his arms around Nagisa, running a hand through his blonde hair. Nagisa sighs with pleasure. “So where do we look for the Leonids?”

“It’s the Perseids, Nagisa-kun. The Leonids are in November. They’ll be coming from over there.” He threads his fingers into Nagisa’s and points their hands into the distance. “But it may be a couple of hours until we see anything.”

“Okay.” Nagisa slips a leg between Rei’s and cuddles closer to him, hearing the low thump of his heartbeat against his ear. Sometimes he still can’t quite believe this happened to him. He’ll show up at swim club and half expect Rei to say something about his new theories on the butterfly stroke or a studying schedule he’s developed to optimize his time management. And then Rei’s eyes will soften when he sees him, and he’ll link their hands together, maybe even gently kiss Nagisa on the forehead when Haru-chan and Mako-chan aren’t looking. 

He’s in love with his best friend. Nagisa tightens his hands around Rei’s back. And his best friend loves him back. This is like, stupid lucky. 

And if they have a couple of hours, maybe tonight Rei will let him…

He certainly doesn’t want to rush him, he doesn’t want to do anything that might screw this up. But they’ve been together a few months now, and Rei looks so good. Well, he looks good every night. But he’s particularly cute right now. Nagisa loops a piece of blue hair around his finger, leans in to give Rei a soft kiss. He responds just as Nagisa hoped he would, twisting around to return the kiss deeper and running his hands over Nagisa’s back and shoulder blades. 

Rei pulls away first, which is fairly standard. No doubt he’s counting the seconds in his head to craft the optimal kiss, then gets out of there in case Nagisa’s bored or something. He’s probably been reading up on how to do it. Oh Rei-chan, you’re way too damn adorable. Nagisa kisses his cheeks instead and brushes his lips down Rei’s neck. Rei’s hands are back in Nagisa’s hair again, threading through the soft strands. Nagisa loves when he does that. Is it just him, or is Rei’s grip a little firmer tonight, his breath a little more hurried? 

He looks up at Rei, sees his violet eyes shining and his expression a little fearful. “Nagisa-kun...do you think...I mean...I know I’ve made you wait a while.”

“It’s okay, Rei-chan. I’ll wait as long as you need. We don’t have to do anything tonight.” It hurts Nagisa just a touch to say it, because Rei really does look gorgeous, and he loves him so much. But he’s not going to get mad over it. He cannot, will not screw this up. 

Rei swallows nervously. “No, what I was going to say was...I’ve made some preparations, and I looked into the most romantic locales to have our first time...I thought this might be a nice one. Of course, this is dependent on whether or not you would like to.” Rei’s eyes are darting, looking anywhere, absolutely anywhere but at Nagisa. 

Nagisa’s tempted to pinch himself. Just to be sure. “You want to do it here? In the park?” 

“I brought a tent.”

“You brought a- where the hell are you hiding a tent?”

Rei opens his backpack to reveal bags of tent pegs, tightly wrapped fabric, an instruction manual, and a small rubber hammer. Nagisa had assumed he’d brought some schoolwork for after he fell asleep.

“Did you bring me here to seduce me, Rei-chan?” Nagisa bats his eyelashes, grinning at him. 

Rei pushes up his glasses. “Here, give me a hand with this.”

It takes them about fifteen minutes to put it together, even with Nagisa’s “help.” He’s distracted watching Rei, the realization sinking in that they’re going all the way tonight. He can see the anxiety in Rei’s flustered movements, the flush in his cheeks. Nagisa’s getting nervous himself. 

He throws the blankets into the tent, smoothes them the best he can, and waits for Rei to join him. He can hear him mumbling to himself out there, probably making sure everything’s perfect, that the tent is angled towards the full moon or something. He eventually crawls in with the basket in tow, placing it in the corner. 

Nagisa pounces on him, kissing him vigorously, his tongue slipping out to meet Rei’s. He’s suddenly feeling shy, and kissing Rei is the fastest way to calm him down. He wants so badly to make Rei’s first time perfect, to put as much thought into it as Rei does into practically every moment they spend together, and now it’s here he’s not sure he’s up to the task. All he can do is cling to Rei, try to show him much he loves him with every touch. He laughs only once, partially from nerves, when Rei shows him the Ziploc bag he’s packed with a small tube of lube and a few condoms. It’s then that Nagisa slides the glasses from Rei’s face and lays them carefully to one side. He wants to tell Rei it’s alright, he doesn’t have to try so hard, to let him take the lead, but it’s hard to think with Rei clutching him tight, pressing his lips to Nagisa’s collarbone and chest, whispering “I love you, Nagisa-kun” against his skin. They undress each other clumsily, the bodies they’ve seen so often at swim practice now so much more soft and vulnerable. Rei’s hands become hesitant, never drifting where they haven’t been invited, and it’s Nagisa who takes hold of Rei first, loving him with his hand, his mouth. Rei squirms and turns red, struggling to relax but finally giving way under Nagisa’s touch. He takes hold of Rei’s hands and helps him prepare him, showing him where to touch, reassuring him with his smile, and then Rei’s inside him, and Nagisa closes his eyes, moving his hips up and down, and Rei’s arms are tight around him. They moan softly together, and shudder with each other when they come. 

They lay there for hours afterwards, wrapped up together. Rei doesn’t mention the meteor shower, and Nagisa doesn’t remind him. He’s scared if they leave the tent he’ll wake up and it’ll be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with this till the end! I really appreciate all the support :)  
> ReiGisa forever, that is all.


End file.
